Thank you for helping us continue to serve our wonderful, diverse, and exciting local Sacramento area communities and beyond!
As ambassadors and teachers, Zado members continually research to expand their knowledge base of Balkan, Slavic, and Caucasian songs, music, and vocal techniques and creative ways to perform and present them. As performers, Zado upholds a tradition of more than four decades of presenting concerts, teaching, and celebrating international folk music with schools, festivals, organizations, and the folk-dance community in northern California. As recording artists, Zado has produced and distributed three CDs/albums. As community members, Zado pursues its overarching goal of delivering performances and instruction that inspire individuals to treasure their own cultural roots and those of others, a theme that continues to have meaning and relevance particularly in today's world.
Last year in 2025, Zado added several new and wonderful singers. In April, 2025, we had a special meeting with world-renown master Bulgarian vocalist and teacher, Tzvetanka Varimezova, for a workshop in Bulgarian vocal techniques, pronunciation, and voice placement. We learned several new songs and had great fun singing with her.
Also in April 2025, Zado performed “Balkan/Slavic Folk Songs: Life and Love” at Kicksville Vinyl and Vintage/Beers Bookstore in Midtown Sacramento. We sang a special version of the Croatian song “Marijana” dedicated to the stores.
In September 2025, Zado again sang for the International Music Benefit Concert for Afghan Refugee Families at the Unitarian Universalist Society of Sacramento. The Society raises awareness of the global and growing refugee crisis and of the needs of newly resettled refugee families in our Sacramento area. With open hearts, UUSS volunteers welcome and support refugee families, providing friendship and assistance toward empowerment and self-sufficiency.
In February 2026, Zado sang “Balkan/Slavic Folk Songs of Love & Life” on Valentine’s Day at the Flower Fist Art Market Gallery in midtown Sacramento. We sang the special version of the Croatian song “Marijana” for this wonderful gallery and art market and had great fun having the audience do some dancing too.
For 2026, Zado is planning a spring concert in March, to perform at the Old Sacramento Spring Festival in April, a workshop/concert with the Bulgarian Varimezovi family in May, and a possible fall collaborative concert TBD.
Mission
Inspired by traditional Balkan folk singing, music, and dance, Zado is a Sacramento-based vocal ensemble performing traditional and contemporary arrangements of international folk songs, particularly those from Eastern Europe. Our mission is to educate and inspire others about the beauty of the music we love; preserve high-quality international folk music; and present programs, recordings, and new art forms that feature unique folk harmonies and rhythms.
Needs
In order to continue presenting programs for the coming year, Zado relies on donations. The wonderful responses and attendance at our recent events suggest that audiences in Sacramento appreciate hearing and learning about folk music from other countries and how other peoples' lives and loves and dreams are actually very similar to their own. Audiences also are hungry for activities that they can actively participate in. Zado programs often encourage audiences to get up out of their chairs and do some folk dancing and have fun!
Zado's goals for 2026-27 include raising additional funds to present future community concerts that include dance; continuing to help other local causes that support, educate, and create understanding among different cultures throughout our community and world; providing professional development and training for our singers; and recording/publishing new repertoire.
Planning, hiring professional guest artists, paying for venues, managing social media, rehearsing singers and instrumentalists, and marketing in order to implement our goals are each hugely expensive. Funds are needed to pay for artists, quality venues, technical audio/video engineers, support staff, sheet music, and concert programs.
Of particular need is to repair our website, which is no longer operable due to changeover in host management beyond Zado’s control. The costs of managing and maintaining a website and social media presence are high, particularly for a very small group like Zado. We are desperately in need of funds to move our website to a more credible and reliable host that provides clear and reliable customer support and allows for ease in creating, editing, publishing, and maintaining our website. To do this Zado also needs to hire a knowledgeable web and tech manager at a reasonable cost who can repair our website and easily navigate current applications in order to renew Zado’s current social media presence.
Zado continues to strive for more diversity on its Board and is working to attract additional members knowledgeable and interested in Board management, Balkan vocal arts and culture, and fundraising strategies.
Zado needs affordable small studio space for rehearsals, intimate performances, and implementing a Balkan song meetup group to teach Balkan choral music and songs.
Equity Statement
Zado continues since 1980 to welcome persons of all races, ethnicities, abilities, gender, socioeconomic status, and ages for auditions to become members; for performances and workshops; for serving on its Board or volunteers; and for providing services (e.g., music, audio/video production). Zado affirms its role as performers and educators to celebrate the splendor of the human voice, the cultural roots of the music, and contemporary expressions. Its overarching goal is to inspire individuals to treasure and celebrate their own cultural roots and those of others, a theme that has power to create understanding and address issues of inequity, misunderstanding, and injustice. Zado is committed to ensuring racial and cultural equity in all policies and practices and that every policy enacted reflects democratic principles of equity and justice.